Thursday, May 28, 2009

Gold Coast: Max Brenner

Max Brennerhttp://www.maxbrenner.com.au/

I first went to Max Brenner in Sydney. It was awesome. I was on a chocolate high for weeks afterwards. And the thing is, I heard that their waffles are supposedly the best thing ever but I didn't get to try any...

so...

I wasn't going to pass up on another opportunity. Max Brenner in the Gold Coast is my closest supplier of the waffles. When I found out I was going to the coast, it was an obvious 'must go' place. We went there on the second night.

The Gold Coast Max Brenner isn't located near the casino or in Surfer's as we thought (or hoped, since our hotel was in Surfer's) but actually near Seaworld. It's inside the Marina Mirage shopping mall. We were trying to reason why they chose that location rather than the more touristy places and decided that it's to cater for the Versace hotel guests :p. And fair enough!The whole shopping mall was closed and empty when we went but we sort of followed the general direction that other people were heading towards and right enough, it lead us to Max Brenner. Which was crowded. The line literally went out the door.

I thought 'oh great' but it didn't deter us. I ordered the Tutti Frutti waffles for one and Charlie (after much uming and ahing) went for the Chocolate Souffle.

There was a bit of a wait for the food but we chose to sit on the bar overlooking their food preparation station... it was quite interesting (and hunger inducing) to see them prepare the food. It's mostly just chopping up fruit and spooning the chocolate but it's even impressive to see how fresh and juicy the strawberries are. Good on them for keeping the standards up.

I got my waffles first and dug right in. It was amazing. I want to eat one now. Perfect texture - the right combination of softness and crispness and denseness and all those things. The chocolate is amazing. I didn't like the fruit (bananas and strawberries) eaten with the waffle but used them to dip into the chocolate. Just a personal preference - I like it better that way and having the waffles 'pure' with a bit of ice-cream.

Max Brenner's chocolate souffle

Charlie's souffle came next. I already knew, from seeing them in the cabinet, that they weren't real souffles. The actual item is more like a molten center baby cake. It is served warm (obviously) and Charlie got ice-cream on the side to cut the chocolateyness. The texture of the cake is soft and melt-in-the-mouth, a bit like a flourless chocolate cake. The inside is rich, dark chocolate. They amp up the chocolate factor even more by pouring molten milk chocolate over the top. It's a delicious dessert but you definitely need the vanilla ice-cream or at least whipped cream or something to help you through it.

Inside of the chocolate souffle

This was another great experience at Max Brenner. If only they'd open one up in Brisbane!!